ATHLETICS
Chinese swimmers arrive
Nearly 200 swimmers from China arrived in Taiwan yesterday to participate in the 12th annual Olympic Hengchun Open Water Swim tomorrow. At the invitation of the Masters Swimming Association of Taiwan, 173 swimmers from the Fuzhou Winter Swimming Association will take part in the 3km swim that runs along the southern coastline near Kenting. It is the third consecutive year the Chinese association will take part in a major swim in Taiwan. In 2009, 683 members of the Fuzhou association participated in the Sun Moon Lake International Swimming Carnival and last year 211 members swam in the Hengchun event. The oldest swimmer from China taking part in this year’s event is 82-year-old Li Shizheng. He will be swimming in Taiwan for the second time, having taken part in the Sun Moon Lake swim two years ago.
CROSS-STRAIT TIES
Delegation buys produce
A Chinese delegation led by Anhui Governor Wang Sanyun (王三運) procured a reported NT$11 million (US$380,000) of agricultural produce in Greater Tainan yesterday. The delegation, which arrived on Monday for an eight-day visit, also signed several cooperative agreements with farmers’ associations and representatives of the agricultural sector during an event held at the city’s Tsou-Ma-Lai Farm. Wang, who was impressed by the development of Taiwan’s high-end agriculture, said he hopes Anhui Province could learn from Taiwan’s business model. People First Party Chairman James Soong (宋楚瑜), who witnessed the signing ceremony, said he hopes the two countries can forge closer ties in agricultural and that more Taiwanese produce can enter the Chinese market.
TRAVEL
EVA to offer flights to Guam
EVA Airways announced on Thursday that it would start offering flights to Guam beginning in June because of rising customer demand. Starting on June 18, the carrier will offer two weekly flights to Guam, officials said. The airline said Guam has become an increasingly popular destination for Taiwanese travelers in recent years and has also become a hot spot for weddings. In addition, the March 11 earthquake and tsunami in Japan has also caused many travelers who originally planned to visit Japan to seek other destinations, adding to the popularity of Guam, the officials said. To celebrate the introduction of the flights, the airline has been cooperating with travel agencies to offer individual and group tours to the US territory.
EMPLOYMENT
NCKU alumni rank No. 1
Graduates of National Cheng Kung University (NCKU) remain the favorites among Taiwanese bosses, while Tamkang University graduates beat out those from National Taiwan University for second place, according to the results of a recent survey conducted by Global Views Monthly magazine in conjunction with 104 Job Bank. The survey showed that National Taiwan University of Science and Technology and Feng Chia University rounded out the top-five list. Regis Chen (陳力孑), an assistant manager with 104 Job Bank, said employers were asked to rate schools based on their alumni’s past performance, their ability to progress and their ability to cope with crises. Chen said that compared with last year, the ranking for vocational school graduates has improved significantly. The survey was conducted between March 7 and March 14 and received 879 valid responses.
THE HAWAII FACTOR: While a 1965 opinion said an attack on Hawaii would not trigger Article 5, the text of the treaty suggests the state is covered, the report says NATO could be drawn into a conflict in the Taiwan Strait if Chinese forces attacked the US mainland or Hawaii, a NATO Defense College report published on Monday says. The report, written by James Lee, an assistant research fellow at Academia Sinica’s Institute of European and American Studies, states that under certain conditions a Taiwan contingency could trigger Article 5 of NATO, under which an attack against any member of the alliance is considered an attack against all members, necessitating a response. Article 6 of the North Atlantic Treaty specifies that an armed attack in the territory of any member in Europe,
FLU SEASON: Twenty-six severe cases were reported from Tuesday last week to Monday, including a seven-year-old girl diagnosed with influenza-associated encephalopathy Nearly 140,000 people sought medical assistance for diarrhea last week, the Centers for Disease Control (CDC) said on Tuesday. From April 7 to Saturday last week, 139,848 people sought medical help for diarrhea-related illness, a 15.7 percent increase from last week’s 120,868 reports, CDC Epidemic Intelligence Center Deputy Director Lee Chia-lin (李佳琳) said. The number of people who reported diarrhea-related illness last week was the fourth highest in the same time period over the past decade, Lee said. Over the past four weeks, 203 mass illness cases had been reported, nearly four times higher than the 54 cases documented in the same period
Heat advisories were in effect for nine administrative regions yesterday afternoon as warm southwesterly winds pushed temperatures above 38°C in parts of southern Taiwan, the Central Weather Administration (CWA) said. As of 3:30pm yesterday, Tainan’s Yujing District (玉井) had recorded the day’s highest temperature of 39.7°C, though the measurement will not be included in Taiwan’s official heat records since Yujing is an automatic rather than manually operated weather station, the CWA said. Highs recorded in other areas were 38.7°C in Kaohsiung’s Neimen District (內門), 38.2°C in Chiayi City and 38.1°C in Pingtung’s Sandimen Township (三地門), CWA data showed. The spell of scorching
A group of Taiwanese-American and Tibetan-American students at Harvard University on Saturday disrupted Chinese Ambassador to the US Xie Feng’s (謝鋒) speech at the school, accusing him of being responsible for numerous human rights violations. Four students — two Taiwanese Americans and two from Tibet — held up banners inside a conference hall where Xie was delivering a speech at the opening ceremony of the Harvard Kennedy School China Conference 2024. In a video clip provided by the Coalition of Students Resisting the CCP (Chinese Communist Party), Taiwanese-American Cosette Wu (吳亭樺) and Tibetan-American Tsering Yangchen are seen holding banners that together read: